As new generations of handsets and other wireless communication devices become smaller and embedded with more and more applications, new antenna designs will be needed to provide solutions to inherent limitations of these devices. With classical antenna structures, a certain physical volume is required to produce a resonant antenna structure at a particular radio frequency and with a particular bandwidth. In multi-band applications, more than one such resonant antenna structure may be required. With the advent of a new generation of wireless devices, such classical antenna structure will need to take into account beam switching, beam steering, space or polarization antenna diversity, impedance matching, frequency switching, mode switching, etc., in order to reduce the size of devices and improve their performance.
In addition, wireless devices are experiencing a convergence with other mobile electronic devices. Due to increases in data transfer rates and processor and memory resources, it has become possible to offer a myriad of products and services on wireless devices that have typically been reserved for more traditional electronic devices. For example, modern day mobile communications devices can be equipped to receive broadcast television signals. These signals tend to be broadcast at very low frequencies, 200-700 Mhz, compared to more traditional cellular communication frequencies of, for example, 800/900 Mhz and 1800/1900 Mhz. One problem with existing mobile device antenna designs is that they are not easily excited at such low frequencies. The present invention addresses the need for antenna designs equipped to be excited at relatively low frequencies in order to support low frequency applications.